My Life with PiX
by BinaryHedgehog
Summary: One day, I came across some curious creatures named PiX. I decided to take them in and study them, little did I know that my life would never be the same. I have complied all my notes and observations in my journal, if you so wish to see it.
1. Beginner Phase

June 1, 20XX

I never expected a day like to this to happen today, in fact I don't think anyone would. It all started at around eight o'clock this morning when a loud "boom" woke me up with a jolt. I had no idea what was going on, so I decided to look outside. A strange ship had crashed and a few strange creatures were getting out. I was little scared at first, I feared that they were dangerous. However, when one of them saw me, they approached me. They generally had white faces, but one had a brown face, though with cat-like mouths; tall, ovular eyes; and *** noses that comes off their faces like a snout. They wore odd costumes that made them look like jesters from days long gone by, and their heads had a hammerhead shape in the back, on which little star ornaments hung as well as a cute little cotton tail hanging around back. You could most likely think those are the ears, but in reality, they have pointy ears sticking out the sides of their heads. They also had strange symbols floating away from their wrists, head, and chest. They were looking about my yard generally appearing confused. I asked them about who they are. Apparently, they're called "PiX" (and they refer to themselves in the third person). There are over 50 billion of them and what these guys, all eleven of them, were doing was heading to something called a "Stellar Joint", which is apparently some kind of planet. When I asked their names, they said they didn't have any, so I decided to name them myself. I named the one in green "Biojin", the yellow one "Tergeo", dark blue is "Aquence", Pink "Cheri", Red "Pygma", purple "Puk", Teal "Deer" (get it?), orange "Sperky", black "Gyami", light blue "Skylar", and white "Alaux". They really seem to like the names and look so cute when they're happy!

I took them inside and asked them what they needed. They said they needed some time to repair their ship. However, I soon heard sirens outside. Someone called the police, who came to investigate. Luckily, they had somehow cloaked the ship and hid in my house, but I better watch my step lest they get hurt, and I probably wouldn't be able to live with myself if that had happened.

I had been playing a lot of Dance Dance Revolution lately, and the PiX seemed to take note of it. I set up the game and let them play. I noticed that they have varying degrees of skill, but it was fun to watch them all play. I actually had a second mat from when I had people to play with (and on the occasion I decided to play Double), so they were playing two at a time! I actually joined in with them and we all had a great time. Time soon came to eat, and I asked what they wanted. I got an odd, response though: Pizza. I decided to order some and within half an hour, it had arrived. When were eating, I noticed they ate a lot of it, but the huge smiles on their little faces made it all worth it. Within in a few hours, it was time for bed. Even though their ship couldn't fly, it was in good enough shape for them to live in. As such, they went to sleep in the ship while I headed for bed. The fun has just started, and I'm actually pretty excited for tomorrow!


	2. Basic Phase

June 2, 20XX

Today I started to observe the PiX in earnest, and my general observation is that each one has their own personality, some act happy, others are more belligerent. Now that I have had time to observe them and compiles notes, I noticed one thing that they all had in common: Music. The beings seemed to survive on music, and were always reacting in various ways to it. I tried different songs, and it seems they react more emotionally to music. Happy songs make them happy, sad songs sad, and even songs filled with anger or rage seemed to have a similar effect on the PiX. Better go through my music library and hide songs they may invoke a violent or dangerous reaction. That being said, they react to meanings, not words. Just because a song has violent lyrics, does not necessarily mean they will act violent unless the song is meant to bring out a violent reaction. For example, "Digital Leash" by The Bronx might bring out a frustrated feeling in the PiX (I haven't tried to observe this), but they don't become violent because of a few phrases in the music. Dance music, however, leads to more interesting reactions. For example, I played "Hey Ya" by Outkast and they ended up enjoying it and dancing, but ended somewhat depressed, as the song itself is actually pretty depressing. I ended up lifting their spirits with "No Limits" by 2 Unlimited and that seemed to cheer them up. As with their individual personalities, if a song strikes a chord with them, they may have a stronger reaction to it. For example: Puk reacting stronger to "100 Little Curses" by The Street Sweeper Social Club and appeared to get angrier than the much happier Tergeo, who reacted significantly better to "No Limits".

I also spent today observing some of the PiX. Biojin was the first one I took note of and she seemed to be sort of a motherly figure to them. She's always there to help, and tends to step in on disputes and fights, which is good because Puk seems to have something against Deer. She has been helping me understand them better and will most likely be an invaluable resource in the future as I can come to her with any questions I have about PiX. This lead to some interesting facts. PiX generally inhabit far off stars and planets, and the stars burn brightly with the energy that emanates from PiX when they get together and have a good time. Each star and planet that PiX gather at are referred to as "Stellar Joints". Stars can have multiple PiX at a time while planets and planetoids generally only have one. Contrary to some information I gleaned, these guys can live for billions and billions of years! As long as music exists in the universe, they'll survive and thrive and continue to make the night sky glitter. Musically, I can't really pin her down, but happiness and worry seem to be the emotions that she reacts strongest too.

One PiX that Biojin looks after quite a bit is Tergeo. This PiX is the youngest of the bunch, only a couple thousand years old. She's a bubbly one, always bounding with energy and is quite the optimist. Her cute voice and and happy demeanor will put a smile on even the most stone-faced person. Under all that innocence, however, is a sense of maturity. She seems aware of the dangers of the universe, but that doesn't seem to stop her from being who she is. She responds well to happier songs like "Celebration" by Kool and the Gang and "The Walker" by "Fitz and the Tantrums". She still has a wild imagination, which at times gets pretty dark and scares her. Fortunately, me and Biojin are always there for when she gets spooked.

One last thing that piqued my interest it pizza. I had some left over Sicilian sitting the fridge, when I decided to eat some of it, I opened the fridge and noticed it was gone. Knowing the PiX were the only other people in the house, I decided to head over to them to see them chowing down on what was supposed to be my dinner. They seemed overjoyed, though, hearing comments like "PiX loves this!" I guess they really enjoy eating pizza. I find it weird that, for all the cuisine that intelligent life in the universe can make, they decide that they love pizza. I'm not gonna question it. They're happy, so I'm happy. Well, gotta end this entry for the night, but one last note: It seems one of them scratched out "red" from the previous day's entry. There's another observation: They hate having their noses called "red". I guess if people started saying that a part of me looked like something it's not, I'd get pretty ticked off myself.


	3. Light Phase

June 3, 20XX

Today was pretty uneventful in terms of events. We played some DDR and had a good time, so today was mostly about my next set of observations, starting with Aquence. This PiX seems to enjoy smooth songs that flow. So, songs like "Flow" as well as various rap songs feel good to him. One of the more interesting things, though, is that there's Korean rap song he enjoys a lot (Oddly enough, it appears in one of those DJMax games I try to keep hidden as I still don't want to risk something going wrong with them. It should be fine, but you never know.). He is generally a very calm individual that keeps to himself. This can change, however. Like the oceans he's named after he can go from calm waters to stormy seas in the blink of an eye. I've generally seen this come out of frustration and anger, but others have told me that even being sad can set him off. It can be hard to calm him down once he's set off, so we usually give him some space.

The other PiX I observed today was Cheri. She's a very kindhearted soul that enjoys love longs, especially ballads. She is far from lovesick, though, in fact she loves to get everyone in on the fun! It's not uncommon to see her playing with the edit mode on the games to make charts that are easier or harder than the original charts so that everyone can enjoy every song! We have worked together on different kinds of charts. We've simplified Boss Charts, made some laughable Basic charts more complex, and even created duets together since Konami scrapped that idea after the first game. (Couple is cool, man!)


	4. Another Phase

June 4, 20XX

Oh, god, something scary happened to day... I'm just happy things didn't get worse. For today's observation, I decided to look at Deer and Puk. These two seem to have some sort sibling thing going on, with Puk constantly teasing her and seems to be on her case a lot of the time. Anyway, on to what I saw today

Deer is... interesting. She acts very prim and proper, always bowing and never forgetting her "pleases" and "thank yous", minding her P's and Q's, it's almost like she' a princess from the days of old. She enjoys slower, smoother songs. Popping in Mario Mix she levitates to "Step by Step" and "Blooper Bop", although this flow also goes into rap... which is an interesting thing. Also, on the latter song, that girl can swing. She's a bit out of her element on "Centaur", but she really gets into the big band feel and hits those eight note triplets (1/12th) like they were nothing! For those who don't know, swing time is all about uneven eighths. Two eight notes are written with the first as two parts of a triplet and the second as the third. (Like a "ba-dum") However, I don't think you're interested in that little explanation, so let's just move to Puk.

Puk is kinda mean and pretty competitive. Rock and rap are his jams and anger and frustration seem to be driving forces for him. Think songs like "Digital Leash" by The Bronx. The thing about it, though, is that he's not inclined to do things are overly violent... which is what makes tonight interesting. The root of the problem is that he's overly competitive, taking every edge he can get and sometimes resorting to dirty tactics. Oh how I wish things didn't go so wrong tonight.

This where things get scary. He and Deer were playing SuperNova together when he tried something very underhanded. He had tried to trip her to make her fall over. However, instead of her falling backwards, she fell forward and hit her head on the base! The poor thing curled up to clutch her head, the fall looked very bad. Biojin and I ran over to make sure she was okay. I was scared sick, she might have a concussion, but I can't take her to a doctor! Fortunately, Biojin knew someone who could help. We had to find a way to punish Puk, but it seems he thought we were gonna give him a "silent treatment". In this punishment, we would isolate him from noise as much as possible. This is emotionally and physically draining on them, and can do irreparable damage, or even kill them, if the process is done wrong. He was very sorry for what happened, and we were aware it was an accident, but that doesn't excuse him for doing something stupid and dangerous. When Biojin came back, Puk ran up to Deer to hug her, crying and saying he was sorry. Biojin told me that Deer's fine, just a nasty bump. That's a relief, but it was still a scary thought to see one of the PiX get hurt right in front of my eyes. As for Puk, we're just gonna keep him off the pads tomorrow so that he can learn his lesson. I really don't think this is a beef with Deer as much as a drive to win at any cost. Maybe a talk of fair play will get him to change his ways.


	5. Trick Phase

June 5, 20XX

Rather uneventful today, there wasn't really an opportunity to find out more about how the PiX live, so today was just more personal observation. The first subject today was Pygma, and she's very competitive. She's always trying to push herself to the limit and out do others. She's about as competitive as Puk, but less underhanded, as while Puk aims to win, Pygma aims to better herself, even if that means great heartbreak. She listens to hard rock songs as well as songs that wouldn't be out of place in "Jock Jams". She seems to really be into 2 Unlimited, which I can get behind wholeheartedly. One thing I see her try often is trying to perfect "MAX 300 (Super-Max-Me Mix)" which is actually a remix of "Maxx Unlimited", but whatever... She says that being able to dance to it is a right of passage where she's from, and she has always lagged behind doing it. I'm just worried about the intensity of a song (it's an 8 on Difficult, which is the chart she's doing), she's collapsed once while practicing it. Luckily, she was just tired and some rest and water got her on her feet again, but would she have just killed herself by overexertion? It's a scary thought but something I can see happening. To make matters worse, the whole thing is frustrating her to the point where she's starting to erupt and lash out at the other PiX with her fiery tongue. It seems Aquence can cool her down long enough to apologize, but it seems that until she can nail this song, we're gonna have to this problem keep happening. I can understand what it's like to be frustrated with a game... those stupid Stunt Runs in Burnout Paradise have been getting my goat as of late. I'm right behind her improving, but her temper needs to get put in order.

Sperky is very energetic and quite an extrovert, always trying to get others on the floor. Enjoying songs like "Rockafeller Skank", "Calico Cat Rock", "Music in the Rhythm", and "NGO" while playing SuperNova 2 and other high energy songs outside of it. When he dances with Pygma, the result is electifying, and we can all feel the energy between them. When were playing X today, the two of them were so in the groove during "On The Break" that we all got up and started dancing ourselves and having the time of our lives!


	6. Standard Phase

June 6, 20XX

Skylar is an interesting one, always optimistic, but a bit out-there. He's always staring off into space, rather than focusing on the task at hand. I wonder what he's thinking about? That being said, he is quite reliable and will always be there for moral support as well as physical support. His songs are divided between fun, upbeat songs and floaty trance music. "Waiting 4 U" Seems to be a favorite of his.

On the other end of the spectrum we have Gyami. I really don't know what to make him. He comes off as cold and callous, but there must be something to him if the other PiX like him. He also likes trance music, but his are much darker in taste. "Dark Black Forest" is what tends to come to mind when I think about musical tastes. Biojin tells me that Gyami cares deeply for them underneath his hard shell.

Something really weird happened today too. The last PiX in the group is Alaux, she seems to be the second oldest and the leader of the group. She is also the most skilled dancer, taking down boss songs as if they were nothing. Her radiant light shines in her smiles and the way she interacts with the other PiX. There was one thing that seem to dim it a bit, though. I was studying the chart for "Max. (Period)" to see what I could expect for it, but something about it made Alaux upset. It took a bit of effort, but with Biojin's help I was able to ask her what was wrong. It turns out that a few million years ago (which is not very long for PiX), she had to help one of her friends pass out. Even though it seems otherwise, PiX aren't technically alive, they're really just constructs of energy given life-like qualities. When they approach the end of their lifespan, other PiX need to help them release their energy, otherwise they explode in a burst of heat, light, and sound and the energy is lost, making all PiX feel weak for a bit. "Max. (Period)" was the song they danced to so they could get the energy out. Since the energy is absorbed by the participants, she always has a bit of her friend inside of her.


	7. Difficult Phase

June 7, 20XX

No, no, no, no, no, no. This cannot be happening. Tonight was not supposed to happen like this. Why did this happen? Please tell me this is just a horrible nightmare... Oh, I'm sharing this with others, might as well write down what happened. It's all so vivid.

Since I had finished my general observations, I had approached the PiX with an idea. "Hey guys, you want to come with me somewhere?" I asked them.

The other PiX looked worried. "Aren't PiX going to be discovered?" Alaux had asked.

"I'll just pass you off as short cosplayers" I responded to her.

"Cos...players?" She responded, tilting her head a bit.

"You're in costumes." I explained, smiling a bit. The PiX seemed to understand. Now, the challenge was to get all eleven of them into my car and keep them entertained for the long trip. That DDR machine was clear on the other side of town! I grabbed my Switch, PSP, DS, and 3DS and loaded them with music games for them to play. Puk seemed to really like Thumper... I did manage to stuff them, but I prayed that I wouldn't get pulled over or I got in an accident, which made me quite nervous. We arrived at the arcade safe and sound and I lead the PiX in. They really wanted to know where the game was, so I took them past the Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots game (which caught Tergeo's attention and imagination) and took them to the DDR A machine towards the back. I got them on the machine, although some seemed to want to try Pump It Up. I guess my worry about DJ MAX was unfounded. I turned on the Full Mode and allowed two others to play on that machine. The four PiX were gathering quite a crowd with their performances! I smiled and got on Super Cars as the other PiX went off to do their own thing.

An hour later I finished a Dirty Drivin' race and I start hearing high voices yelling. "Tergeo!" "Where are you?" "Tergeo!" I saw Biojin walk by, and she was very distraught.

"Biojin, what's going on?" I ask her.

"PiX can't find Tergeo!" She said, crying a bit.

"Where did you see her?" I said, kneeling down to her. She points to the DDR machines.

"She's not responding to our dances... PiX is worried..." Biojin said.

"Dances?" I asked

"PiX can locate each other with a dance, but the other needs to respond. PiX is worried something happened to her!" She said to me.

"We'll find her, I promise" I tell Biojin as I begin to yell out for Tergeo. We searched for a while when a worried woman approached me.

"Wait, are those things alive?" She asked. I had nodded to her. "Oh, no..."

"What is it?" I asked her, thinking she knows something about Tergeo.

"I-I thought it was a toy... I saw a woman walk away with one!" The woman in front of me said.

"Was she yellow?" I responded. The woman nods and all the faces on the PiX drop.

"Y-yes..." I said to her before leaving to fight back tears. Tergeo had been kidnapped, and we don't know by who, to where, or why! "Can you describe the woman to me?"

"She had long red hair and was wearing a red coat, kinda like something out of a circus." She responded. I thanked her and we all piled into the car. We started looking for the woman in the area nearby, but we couldn't find her. We searched for hours but with no such luck. It was getting late and we had to go home. Gyami got mad at me.

"B-but we have to find her! PiX would never forgive himself if something bad were to happen!"

"I know, but if we get some sleep we can start fresh tomorrow." I drove the upset PiX home and they all went to bed. I really want to find her. We can take solace tonight that at least she isn't hurt. The PiX would feel it if that were not the case.


End file.
